By Shelby Brown–
Last month, the Kentucky Supreme Court declared Governor Matt Bevin’s two percent university budget slash unconstitutional in a 5-2 ruling. Attorney General Andy Beshear has ordered Bevin to “immediately” return the $18 million to the affected colleges and universities.
Bevin and Beshear seem to have different definitions of “immediately.” The Governor has been dragging his feet on the matter.
“I guess he’s upset because he’s not getting his way,” Arts & Sciences Dean Kimberly Kempf-Leonard said.
The University of Louisville is expecting $2 million for salaries. However, the lag has left U of L with vague timetables for paying faculty.
“Initially, we thought it would be in the November paychecks for faculty and the December paychecks for staff but it’s taking a while to figure it out. So hopefully everyone will get it at the same time and hopefully that will be in December,” Kempf-Leonard said.
Kempf-Leonard’s goal for Arts & Sciences share of the funds is to raise faculty and staff salaries. U of L’s Arts & Sciences college faculty and staff salaries differ most from the median of similar universities.
“I hope it will help morale and get closer to having comparable salaries to our colleagues at other ACC universities,” Kempf-Leonard said.
While the Governor procrastinates cutting red tape, Arts & Sciences has been managing with what it’s been given.
“Although this college covers 50 percent of all credit hours, it does not get 50 percent of all tuition, so we are always in a deprived status,” professor of communications Michael Cunningham said. “As a result, we are used to getting by with so little for so long. We can get along with nothing.”
When walking around campus, recent renovations are easily noticed. The Delphi Center is fairly new to Ekstrom Library, different eating choices are available in the SAC and an upcoming Starbucks to replace Heine Brothers is currently under construction.
It is understandable that funds are made available for different projects on parts of campus at different times. However, Arts & Sciences has received less attention than other portions of campus. While the first floor of Strickler Hall had their auditoriums renovated, the more frequently used classrooms did not.
“The whiteboards are totally worn out, they’re just gray, you can’t write on them and you can’t erase them properly,” Cunningham said. “Some of the overhead projectors are just really old and they don’t sync properly with computers. They don’t have high resolution; the screens are relatively small. We would like to have smart boards that actually recorded the notes for teachers that still write on the board.”
Bevin’s budget cut plans surfaced in January, the target painted on higher education. The Governor made it evident that he favors STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education over the arts with a jab at individuals studying French literature.
“There will be more incentives to electrical engineers than French literature majors. There just will,” Bevin said. “All the people in the world that want to study French literature can do so, they are just not going to be subsidized by the taxpayer.”
Interestingly enough, Bevin himself graduated from a private liberal arts college with a degree in East Asian studies. He also proposed performance-based funding models for all colleges and universities in the state. Add that to the fact that, earlier this year, he suggested that individuals studying arts and humanities would not help the workforce shortage in the same way that engineers would.
STEM education has a focus on competition, the jobs market and the economy. It is evident why this would interest Bevin in the middle of a pension shortfall and what he perceives as workforce demands. Performance-based funding means that universities or colleges performing to a certain standard will receive more money. There are concerns with this model that schools may try to minimize the failure rate of students in fear of losing funds or their jobs.
“It is a business model, first of all,” Kempf-Leonard said. “I think performance based funding is definitely something that is very popular nationally right now and the key is figuring out what the metrics that that performance will be judged by. My hope is that many of the things that we do very well in Arts & Sciences will constitute the metric, so that we’ll be able to compete for those funds. I don’t like the Governor’s plan. It puts at risk current money that’s already been allocated on a yearly basis.”
But should schools have to compete for funds? Aspects of performance-based funding can be seen in statewide testing – such as with K-PREP, formerly known as CATS. The better the scores are for the schools, the more funds they can receive. Cunningham and Kempf-Leonard agree that for the model to work, an equal standard has to be set for schools to strive for and resources to meet the goals must be available.
“Education is not for life, it is life. It should be a continuing process. And similarly, jobs are not the goal of life; they are a part of life. I believe in meaningful work,” said Cunningham.
Kempf-Leonard would like to see a new, more effective budget model for the university.
“It needs to be more connected to academic affairs than it is right now so that we can distribute the funds where we need them,” Kempf-Leonar said. “Trying to get us there from the current budget model is going to be tricky because we’ve had the current model for a really long time and change is hard at a university. It goes very slowly.”
As of the Supreme Court decision to reverse the Governor’s budget cuts, Bevin has twenty days to appeal. There has been no word yet.
“I am optimistic that some of this will be solved,” Kempf-Leonard said. “I was happy with the judge’s decision.”
